What is the Mediterranean Diet ?

The virtues of the Mediterranean diet have long been extolled by the medical profession, but convincing the British public has not been easy. People have become aware during this century that good health is linked to good diet. The difficulty has been explaining a good diet. The conflicting evidence and advice given, especially over the past 20 years, has not clarified the situation. Meanwhile, the national appetite for junk food continues unabated.

Most people are aware that they should increase fiber intake and cut down on fats, but that not all fats are bad. Unfortunately, much of this information has been gained from sources such as the popular press and television commercials, which do not always present a balanced view of the whole picture.

Small improvements in eating habits seen over the last 20 years have been incidental and usually triggered by other factors. For example, the reduction in egg consumption was because of the salmonella crisis in the late 1980s, and the beneficial changes from butter to margarine and red to white meat can be accounted for by price differences.

The diet followed in the UK, and indeed in much of northern Europe, is high in animal fats, which are very positively correlated with colorectal and breast cancers.

A number of large European and US population studies have also demonstrated that a diet rich in saturated fatty acids found in animal fats raises atherogenic low density lipoproteins (LDL) cholesterol and is thus causally related to a high incidence of coronary heart disease. The UK has a high incidence of heart disease, and cancers of the breast and large bowel.

On the other hand, the traditional European Mediterranean diet is well known to be associated with a reduced risk of heart disease, obesity, gallstones, diabetes, and cancers of the breast and large bowel.

The Mediterranean diet has always included more cereals, more fish, more fruit and vegetables, and more olive oil than countries in northern Europe. In addition, proteins and fats consumed in the UK tend to be from animals, whereas the Mediterranean diet contains a much higher proportion of fat and protein derived from vegetables.

The traditional source of fat in the Mediterranean diet is olive oil, and the benefits of adopting a Mediterranean-style diet, including the substitution of olive oil for animal fats, provide a clear direction and good news for all involved in the provision of dietary advice, including community pharmacists.

Although documented benefits of the Mediterranean diet concern cancer and coronary heart disease, evidence suggests that this may be mediated through several contributing mechanisms.


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